


Sunsets, Mattresses and Good Mornings

by schrodingers_bee



Series: A Study Into the Complexities of the Irish-English Love Affair [1]
Category: Derry Girls (TV)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 18:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrodingers_bee/pseuds/schrodingers_bee
Summary: After Michelle’s gets more wasted than usual, celebrating James’ decision to stay in Derry, it falls to Erin and James to look after her. However, the shock of the day’s events and two slow growing crushes leads to a night of confessions. Post 2x06





	1. Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

> This guys, this is my first attempt at a fanfic so I’d really appreciate any comments or criticisms down in the comments! Thanks xx

 

 

“‘I AM A DERRY GIRL!’” Michelle mimicked, chortling along with Erin, Claire, Orla and even James as they sat on the hill, using their dodgy flags as blankets against the damp grass.

 

The original giddiness of being reunited with their fellow (if honorary) Derry Girl had dissipated just enough that Michelle once again felt compelled to tease her wee English prick of a cousin to the ends of the earth. Of course she was glad to have him back but now that things were back to normal, surely teasing the English prick was her contribution to the restoration of order in the world.

 

“Ye sounded like a right old prick,” Erin laughed, “but ye weren’t wrong.” Smiling reassuringly at James who was sat right next to her.

 

“Aye,” Michelle slurred taking another swig of the vodka with unsettlingly unclear origins, “even if ya English ‘n’ a bloke.”

 

“Thanks guys.” James smiled, lying back onto the dodgy flag that had been draped over his shoulders, by Michelle of all people, only three hours prior. His head hit something solid, but soft, instead of the cheap fabric he expected. Looking up, he saw Erin looking down at him in surprise.

 

He was resting his head on Erin’s lap.

 

Shit.

 

Bollocks.

 

Fuck.

 

Erin just smiled and looked back at Claire who continued to warn Michelle about the dangers of drinking vodka she didn’t know anything about. Michelle just drank more in lazy defiance which only seemed to agitate Claire more.

 

Whilst James would have normally backed Claire up (them being the two resident voices of reason in the group, with the occasional input from Erin) he was too busy staring at the owner of his current headrest to contribute, scanning Erin’s face for any kind of disgust or discomfort.

 

Nothing. She just smiled, her attention now drawn to Orla doing what could only be described as a poor, though admittedly adorable, excuse for a cartwheel across the grass.

 

Watching Erin, he noticed how she glowed in the light of the sunset; hues of oranges, reds, purples and blues highlighting how blissfully content she looked. Her lips a brighter shade of pink and her hair turning a richer shade of gold. He cringed at how cheesy he sounded, but shook it off almost immediately.

 

It was these moments he always cherished, those brief moments between the day and night when the bustle of the day was sent to a stand still whilst the raucous nightlife was still waiting patiently for the last rays of sun to disappear. Time, in a way, was frozen. Even in London, that never seemed to stop moving, these were the moments he found peace. The sunsets were his solace from a mother who always smelled like men that wasn’t his stepdad; solace from the endless wondering of if he was just never good enough for her; solace from the town of Derry he never felt he belonged in. But not anymore.

 

He was a Derry Girl now. Michelle said so and since he had once believed nothing kind about him could ever escape her mouth, it had to be true. And it was her words that also made him realise that it was his mum who wasn’t good enough for him. Instead, those who truly loved and cared for him were in the town he had grown to love without even knowing it; even if the town and its people showed it in a rather weird way. When she was less drunk he would tell her just how much her words meant to him. She would probably call him a prick, hiding behind her ‘I don’t give a fuck’ facade, but he’d say it anyway.

 

James sighed and closed his eyes, before jolting them open a second later.

 

Was Erin playing with his hair?

 

“I’m gonna boke!”


	2. Mattresses

 

James shot up, immediately missing the feeling of Erin’s fingers in his hair and the warmth of her lap, and watched Michelle do just that. All over the grass. And Claire’s legs.

 

“Fuck! Michelle!” She squeaked in horror as they all looked over at Michelle who had become a concerning shade of green.

 

“What did I tell ya Michelle!” Claire gasped, looking at her legs as if she wished they would just fall off, “I knew you were gonna boke and did ya listen? No!”

 

Orla, only just catching on, remarked hazily “Aye you got a bad dose there didn’t ya Michelle.”

 

Erin scoffed, standing up and going to Michelle so she could hold back her hair,

“She’s not ill Orla, she’s drunk!” Grabbing the offending bottle, she took a whiff, “Christ Michelle! This shite could peel paint!”

 

Michelle simply groaned in response.

 

Erin turned to James, who was wiping the sick off Claire with his flag. He looked up and immediately caught the look of panic on her face.

 

“Maybe we should get her home.” She suggested, whilst secretly questioning whether the hospital would be more appropriate.

 

As if he could read her mind, James replied reassuringly, “All she needs is a long sleep and someone to make sure she doesn’t choke on her own vomit.”

 

Their stomachs clenched at the thought of it.

 

“I can do it.” James added, figuring that he probably owed Michelle that, at the very least, after her words of reason saved him from at least a few years of selling stickers— or self-adhesive labels— in a place he could no longer call home.

 

“Let me.” Erin rebuked, figuring she owed Michelle that, at the very least, after her words of reason saved her from a James-less existence.

 

“How about we take shifts? Keep each other company.” James smiled softly, reckoning having Erin with him would make trying to catch Michelle’s vomit into a bucket (instead of onto Aunt Deirdre’s carpet) far more enjoyable.

 

After dropping a grumpy but concerned Claire and a (typically) oblivious Orla at their respective houses and convincing her Ma and Pa to let her stay at Michelle’s overnight for a ‘Girl’s Night In’, Erin ran to the Mallon residence where James had already tucked a passed out Michelle into bed.

 

“Auntie Deirdre and Uncle Martin are on the night shift tonight so there’ll be no one to question the stench of vodka and puke.” He chuckled.

 

“Honestly it reeks so bad we’ll probably have ye neighbours on us.”

 

“I wouldn’t put it past them.”

 

They smiled at the satire of it all.

 

“We ought to make ourselves comfortable then, eh?”

 

“Aye.” Erin replied warily, dreading the thin carpet’s impact on her back in the morning. She was a teenager, not indestructible.

 

James grinned, “Give me a second,” and disappear.

 

A minute later Erin heard a thump and a subsequent grunt from the hallway. Craning her head through the doorway she giggled as she watched James try and fail to pull his mattress out of his room and into the narrow landing.

 

“Lemme help.” She whispered. Trying to manoeuvre past him so she could push from the other end, she lost her balance and ended up pinning him against the wall with the mattress providing limited room for them to change their position. Fumbling to try and hide their reddening faces, James tripped over Erin’s entangled legs sending them both flying onto the mattress.

 

“Sorry, shit, sorry Erin, are you okay?”

 

He expected her to push him off her and refuse to talk to him the rest of the night. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He also, very briefly, hoped she would kiss him. He would kiss her back. But he never expected her to start giggling uncontrollably. It started off as a slowly growing giggle and left her guffawing with him not far behind. He adored her laugh. It was unapologetic, loud and so very Erin.

 

She, in turn, loved his smile. The first time she really saw him smile like that was a few months ago when he had abandoned his creep convention to take her to prom and subsequently get Carrie’d. It was as if there was nowhere he’d rather be. His words left her up that night, that and the lingering smell of tomato juice.

 

“It doesn’t matter.”

 

She saw more affection in that smile and those words than in all the idiots she fancied over the years. She saw him gaze at her, not at the blue, skin-tight dress that suffocated her. He wouldn’t care if she wore a burlap sack, so why should she? All he cared about was going with her. Erin Quinn. And in putting on her Easter dress she saw him smile brighter, because she smiled brighter. She was comfortable, she was cared for, she was herself.

 

“It doesn’t matter.”

 

It didn’t. But she did. And James wished he told her that. Every night since. It made his heart break to know that she had been stood up and the call from Mary was the push he needed. That’s where he wanted to be. It just took a while to realise it. Obviously he had alway fancied Erin, but quietly in the back of his mind, since the day she first scowled at his ‘funny accent’. But he knew there would be unspeakable consequences for dating Michelle’s mates so his mind (and perhaps also his heart) complied. But apparently deranged Donegal girls, tomato juice and Carrie reenactments was just the right combination to sprout his fully blown crush into fruition. And that smile, of course, her smile when she walked down those stairs in her Easter dress because she knew (he hoped she did, at least) that she didn’t need to be anything but herself around him.

 

 

 

Breathless from laughter, they searched each other’s eyes as if to say, ‘Will you make the first move? Or shall I?’ Before either could get an answer they heard a heave and subsequent splatter of liquid on plastic that dragged them back into reality.

 

“At least she got it in the bucket.” Erin smirked. Getting up, James mumbled something about grabbing the pillows and duvet from his room and disappeared again.

 

Erin grinned, a few months ago she would have blamed his reddening face on him being a pervy bloke but now she revelled in the impact lying on top of her seemed to have on him. Although she knew she couldn’t talk after the shocking shade of red her cheeks turned to when James lay his head on her lap.

 

Sliding the mattress into Michelle’s room, a safe distance away from the splash (or boke) zone, Erin sat cross-legged on the mattress listening to her drunken friend’s delicate snores.

 

“Erin!” James whispered, hugging enough pillows and duvet that his face had completely vanished amongst them.

 

Erin bit back a laugh and scuffled off the mattress so that he could release them.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Before long they were sat under the duvet, propped up by towers of pillows and silently listening out for that familiar retch.

 

It came soon enough.

 

“Ack, I can’t bare it anymore!” Erin hissed, jumping off their makeshift bed and swinging open Michelle window as if she had sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

 

“Fuck it’s cold.” She grumbled, climbing back under the covers.

 

“Well, Erin, it is December.”

 

Erin elbowed him and retorted,

 

“Well I’d rather be cold than smell that,” nodding over to Michelle’s bucket, “any longer.”

 

“Fair enough.”

 

As if instinctively, Erin nudged closer to James and rested her head on his shoulder, thinking back his head on her lap and the knot in her stomach when she thought he had gone for good, she blurted out,

 

“Do ya fancy me James?”

 

James knew he could have laughed and denied it but if he couldn’t confess to it now, when could he?

 

“Yes. Do you?” He gazed at Erin, illuminated by the moon shining through the window. She shrugged nervously,

 

“I suppose so, aye.”


	3. Good Mornings

 

“I mean,” Erin added, “it became sorta obvious when I thought you were leaving me— us— and I felt about as sick as Michelle did after all that dodgy vodka, which is saying something.”

 

As if to prove her point, Michelle heaved once again, sending more boke into the steadily filling bucket.

 

“But I think I really started to see ya that way when you abandoned your creep convention to take me to prom.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“And the fact that I always thought that yer were probably the best ride in Derry.”

 

James grinned, clearly pleased with himself to have achieved such high praise, as a mere wee English fella.

 

“What about you?” She prompted, looking up at him, smiling softly,

 

“Huh?”

 

“When did ya realise you fancied me?”

 

“Honestly?” He waited as Erin nodded, “I fancied you from day one.”

 

Erin grinned, looking rather chuffed with herself.

 

“But,” James added, smirking mischievously, “I guess I really started to fancy you when I saw you in that blue dress.”

 

Erin, laughed, elbowing him in the side,

 

“I’m kidding,” he chuckled, “but seriously, I started to really fancy you when I realised, on the night of the prom, that there was nowhere I’d rather be than with you. Even if that meant ditching my Doctor Who —“

 

“—Creep —”

 

“—convention to go to Jenny Joyce’s 50s themed prom.”

 

Erin gasped teasingly, “Ye must really fancy me.”

 

James nodded, “In fact,” he mused wistfully, “after your ma called me and the original shock of hearing that that dickhead ditched you wore off, I could hardly stop grinning.”

“Oh.” Erin paused, lost for words for one of the first times in her life,

 

“So what do we do now?”

 

James smirked, “I’m not actually too sure.”

 

They sat in silence for a moment, silently processing each other’s confession.

 

“I know.” Erin smiled, hoping Michelle (who was she kidding) and Derry (forget it) would forgive her for what she was about to do, and a second later brushed her lips against James’.

 

He responded in turn, grinning against her mouth.

 

Without breaking contact, Erin straddled him, once hand holding his cheek and once resting against his chest, his heart thudding at a million miles an hour against her palm, just as her heart was against her rib cage.

 

Hesitantly, James moved his hands to her waist, stroking a sliver of exposed skin with his thumb, and deepened the kiss. Tentatively, his tongue requested entrance and was granted it with a low moan. Erin wrapped her arms around his neck, engulfed in the warmth of his lips. Growing in confidence, James let his hands slowly rise underneath her top. Having been so close from being separated, they revelled in their proximity (their current kissing skills being far from admirable, not that they knew that) both saying without words,

 

‘I am here. I am—‘

 

 

Blughhhh

 

Breaking apart, flushed and panting, Erin clambered off the mattress, and James, and pulled back Michelle’s hair as she began to heave, unconscious, once again, into the bucket.

 

“Now d’ya see why I opened the window?” Erin smiled shyly, breaking the silence between them.

 

James smiled, getting up to grab a damp flannel, both of them now more than eager to distract themselves from the connotations of their kiss.

It didn’t take long before both were hovering over the mattress wondering where it left them in regards to sleeping arrangements.

 

“So...” James began, “do you want to sleep head to toe or—“

 

“— Christ’s sake James!” Erin huffed, “Do ye wanna go out or not?”

 

“Yes.” James feebly replied, knowing full well that beating ‘round the bush would not end well for him.

 

“Good. So do I.” Erin beamed, nodding towards the mattress, “But no funny business.” James blushed and quickly nodded.

 

Realising then that they were both shivering, but still unwilling to cut off the air flow to the room, they tucked Michelle in with an extra, expendable, blanket and returned to their mattress, curled up together to stay warm.

 

To pass the time they told stories. Stories that in the chaos of their daily lives they’d never usually been able to share. Erin talked about the time Orla and her, as wee ’uns, tried to steal a horse in their quest to become knights, while James shared the time his mum left him in the fishmongers on Portobello Road, beginning a life-long phobia of all things fish (and chip shop) related.

 

As their yawns became more and more frequent they decided to take shifts. For two hours James reread his comics while Erin dozed on his chest, her nose whistling each time she exhaled and for the two hours after Erin flicked through Michelle’s endless magazines while James snored lightly beside her.

 

He woke with sun and looking around saw Erin, clad in her school uniform, watching the sun rise from the window. He watched her for a minute trying to believe that last night had really happened and that it wasn’t just his unhinged brain playing tricks on him. Catching him in the reflection of the window, Erin turned round and smiled,

 

“The sunrise is gorgeous, come look?”

 

Complying, James got up and joined her,

“So are you.” He smirked.

 

Erin groaned.

 

“Never again?”

 

“Never!” She laughed, shaking her head.

 

“Okay.” He smiled, taking hold of her hand, “Even though it’s tr—“

 

Suddenly, they heard a groan followed by something closely resembling ‘motherfucker’ and they knew immediately that Michelle was awake and was experiencing what would go down as the worst hangover in the history of Derry.

 

Before she could gain full conscious James leant over and gave Erin a brief kiss on the cheek,

 

“Good morning Erin Quinn.”

 

Erin squeezed his hand before releasing it,

“Good morning James Maguire.”

 

They looked over to where Michelle was stirring. That’s when the penny dropped,

 

“Fuck.” James whispered.

 

“What?”

 

“Michelle’s gonna flip when she finds out.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it isn’t the longest fanfic but I hope you’ve all enjoyed it! :)
> 
> If you’re interested in what happens next please comment and I’d be happy to try my hand at writing more!


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